Learn from my mistakes, you don't have time to make them yourself

Shane helps to shape the future

We just had Shane Morris come to my work to spend some time with us talking about UX. There was a statement he made that really stood out. It was something like:

Usability is the natural enemy of functionality. A successful application is usually one with features left out.

Hope I’m not misrepresenting him, but I think this is a really important point, especially when UX is normally a developer responsibility. Developers tend to cram in functionality because that is what the business spec told them to do.

From the developer community, and their managers, I think there needs to be more of a focus on what the final product will become (good or bad) rather than just ticking the boxes to say that we covered all the use cases. I think the key here is to have a change of perspective.

I have often thought that if you have developed the greatest software on the planet, but the UX is terrible, then you really missed the point (and wasted a lot of money/time). UX is just as important as every other piece of the software puzzle. I’m glad that this is becoming a bit more accepted in the industry.